The science and technology challenge, which is aimed at 9-16 year olds, tasks teams to solve real world problems with the help of a robot. This year’s challenge, which was announced across the world in August, requires young people to identify a real-world problem in the way that waste is dealt with, investigate it and come up with an innovative solution. They also had to design, build and program an autonomous LEGO MINDSTORMS robot to tackle a series of waste-related missions.

Lambda Jam and the RSE Young Academy of Scotland (YAS) have been building on the success of last year’s FIRST LEGO League (FLL) to bring the enjoyment of robotics to 1,000 Scottish schoolchildren.

The young master builders and inventors have been gearing up to put their robots and ideas to the test at tournaments across the country. This is the culmination of months of engineering design, programming, and research, led mainly by teachers with mentoring from professional engineers and university academics.